Hoff is PAL JOEY with Channing and Plimpton

what a cast! i already wanted to see this but WOW! Roundabout knocks it out of the park again!

I can't even begin to describe how excited I am to see this. I think I am looking forward to this production more than any other of the coming season.

Love the show but am disappointed with casting of Hoff. I'll go anyway, but the Encores! production with Lupone and Peter Gallagher used the original text and it worked just fine. And I'm not sure if reassigning the Zip number to Gladys is a good idea -- Gladys is a real low-life who wouldn't have the foggiest idea who Noel Coward, Stravinsky, or, for that matter, Gypsy Rose Lee were. I mean, the verse, sung by a reporter, says "my greatest achievement of all I've known was a star who worked at Minsky's" or words to that effect. I would assume that any lyrics referring to a reporter would be changed. And Larry Hart don't need no help from no one, when it comes to the lyric department. Just let it play as written. And put a real dancer in the title role, not someone who might know some dance steps.

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"Zip" is performed in Greenberg's revision as an onstage nightclub number.

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David Hasselhoff and Carol Channing in a musical together? Now that's something I'd pay to see!

Can he dance?

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Just a reminder. The two most successful Joeys in this country ever were Gene Kelly and Harold Lang -- two GREAT dancers. When they start casting non-dancers in the role, the show loses.

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My thoughts EXACTLY, allofmylife.

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I think it's a great cast, but I'm also worried about Hoff not being a dancer... meaning will they cut the dancing from this character?

The problem is that this Joey is a jerk (no, not our PJ!), but the leading character "Pal" Joey.

The reason the show worked to begin with was Gene Kelly's charm, good looks... and DANCING. He won audiences over with his grace and body language, at the same time he was screwing everyone over to get what he wanted in life.

Hoff's got 2 out of 3 going for him, but cut the dance, and you cut a MAJOR part of the character's appeal. And I'm not sure any actor would be strong enough to win the battle, as others have pointed out here. It just doesn't work well at all.

You'd be left with a show about a real jerk... that ultimately no one would care about.

But as "personalities" I love the three choices, and I really hope they can pull this off.

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Great cast! I just hope Channing can knock B, B & B out of the park.

Huh? What theatre actor is THE Hoff?

He's the only Tony Award Winner with the last name Hoff.

Who else would it logically be?

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Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart wrote this show with Gene Kelly in mind.

He was not an unknown entity at the time. Remember back then how incredibly important Broadway was to the American entertainment industry.

A kid with Kelly's talents would have been recognized years before by the Broadway equivalent of baseball scouts. He had appeared in two shows on Broadway and had choreographed numbers for several shows.

Robert Alton had been a hoofer himself, all the way back to the early 1920s and knew every talented kid in the biz. All of this by way of saying R&H(version 1) knew who they were getting and crafted a show around him.

This is a dancer's show. This was Gene Kelly's show. If Christian Hoff has the balls to say he has talents equal to the guy this show was written for, then I'll pay to see him. If he says "I have other talents" I'll say "So has Paulo Szot, but I wouldn't pay to see him in Pal Joey."

Harold Lang and Bob Friggin' Fossee have played this role. I smell dancer, not singer who moves.

Finally, to prove my point, watch this footage again and tell me that Christian Hoff has the talents Gene Kelly had (and also see how Gene was dancing in 1933. As A KID he was amazing).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsvDiqzSUBQ

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